Consulting·36·Added 2026-10-03

Cross-pollinate

The practice of forcing two entirely unrelated departments into a meeting room in the vague hope that their proximity will spontaneously generate a profitable idea.

What they actually mean

"Neither team has any idea what the other does, but it makes the calendar look busy."

Heard in the wild

"We need to cross-pollinate the compliance team with our creative designers to see what sparks fly."

More from Consulting

To bubble up

To escalate an issue or piece of information through the corporate ranks, ensuring it is sufficiently diluted by the time it reaches someone with the power to make a decision.

Let's bubble this feedback up to the steering committee to see what they think.

Translation

I want to pretend I am doing something with your complaint without actually having to resolve it.

Read entry

To sense-check

The act of asking a colleague to review a piece of work to ensure it does not contain errors so glaringly obvious they could end careers.

"Could you just run your eyes over this deck to sense-check the numbers before we send it to the board?"

Translation

Please tell me I haven't accidentally predicted a four hundred percent loss.

Read entry

To goldplate

The act of adding highly polished, completely unnecessary features to a project long after the client's actual requirements have been fully satisfied.

"I know they only asked for a simple feedback form, but if we goldplate the reporting dashboard with 3D charts, we can justify another month of consulting fees."

Translation

To keep working on something until we have depleted the client's remaining budget.

Read entry